1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a connector for a coaxial cable and its connecting method.
2. Description of the Related Art
A method of connecting a connector to a coaxial cable such as shown in FIG. 17 has been conventionally proposed. This method consists of folding the braid 81b of a coaxial cable 81 back on the sheath 81c, inserting into a connection hole 82a of a terminal 82 and bending the conductor 81a of the coaxial cable 81, and soldering and electrically connecting the conductor 81a to the terminal 82, so as to produce a terminal-attached cable 80.
The terminal-attached cable 80 is placed on a pair of holder bodies 83a, 83a of an insulating terminal holder 83, and the pair of holder bodies 83a, 83a, as shown in FIG. 18, are closed to fix the terminal-attached cable 80 therein and provide a holder-attached cable 84. As shown in FIG. 19, the holder-attached cable 84 is inserted into a conductive sleeve 85 from the rear, and the latter is then crimped on and electrically connected to the folded-back braid 81b. After completion of the crimping, that part of the braid 81b exposed from the sleeve 85 is cut with a cutting means and removed to provide a connector-attached coaxial cable 86.
With the method as mentioned above, however, the process from soldering the conductor 81a to the terminal 82 to crimping the sleeve 85 onto the braid 81b, as apparent from FIGS. 17 to 19, involves setting the terminal-attached cable 80 in the terminal holder 83 and setting the holder-attached cable 84 in the sleeve 85, during each of which load tends to be imposed on the conductor 81a, possibly resulting in impairment of quality. Besides, the method, due to its complexity, is not adapted for automating, resulting in a poor production efficiency.
Further, another method of connecting a coaxial cable connector such as shown in FIG. 20 has been proposed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,110,308. This method includes inserting the coaxial cable 81 into the adapter portion 92 of a T-shaped housing 91 and inserting the conductor 81a into a connection hole 93a of the terminal portion 93 inside the housing 91 for electrically connecting the conductor 81a to the terminal portion 93.
The adapter portion 92 is pushed in between the insulator 81d and the braid 81b, followed by, as shown in FIG. 21, bending the sleeve portion 94 of the housing 91 toward the coaxial cable. The braid crimp piece 94a of the sleeve portion 94 is crimped on the braid 81b to electrically connect the sleeve portion 94 to the braid 81b. A connector-attached cable 90 is thus obtained.
With the method as mentioned above, however, because the terminal portion 93, adapter portion 92 and sleeve portion 94, as apparent from FIGS. 20 and 21, are provided in one piece by molding, an insulating member 95 needs to be inserted around the terminal portion 93 to prevent a short circuit between the terminal portion 93 connected to the conductor 81a and the sleeve 94 connected to the braid 81b, which is troublesome. Further, because the method involves bending the sleeve portion 94, the coaxial cable 81 may erroneously get damaged or the housing 91 may be deformed during the bending operation, resulting in lowered reliability of the product.